Moments before the execution of Carey Dale Grayson on Thursday for the 1994 slaying and mutilation of a hitchhiker in Jefferson County, the warden of William C. Holman Correctional Facility held a microphone for Grayson to say his final words.

But Terry Raybon immediately pulled the microphone away after Grayson started by saying, “For you, you need to f*** off.”

The rest of his statement went unheard from the three witness rooms. After that, nitrogen gas flowed into a gas mask attached to Grayson’s face. He was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m.

“Did you hear his statement?” Alabama Department of Commissioner John Hamm said at a press conference following the execution. “That was enough. He has cursed out most of our employees tonight, so we were not going to give him the opportunity to spew that profanity.”

Grayson, at one point, also pointed up the middle finger on at least his left hand, which was visible to media witnesses.

Following Grayson’s death, his attorney and spiritual advisor Kacey Keeton said that Grayson had more to say when the microphone was taken away. Keeton, who was sitting in the execution chamber with Grayson, said that he was cursing at Raybon specifically with his expletives and not at the broader audience.

After the microphone was taken and those in the witness rooms could not clearly hear him, Keeton said Grayson talked about how he committed a horrible crime and how sorry he was for it, adding that he had been sorry for over 30 years. According to Keeton, Grayson said he repented and that he was saved and knows God, and hopes for forgiveness.

He talked about the prison and disappointment in the system, mentioning that people there are committing murder and are “serial killers.”

Grayson said, according to Keeton, that he hopes everyone knows the state is committing murder in the name of Alabama and the people that live there. He said he was praying for everyone, that God was with them.

The gas apparently started flowing at 6:12 p.m., followed by Grayson gasping and raising, shaking his head left to right. About 6:14 p.m., both of his legs on the gurney raised up. His movements slowed, but he had what appeared to be periodic gasps over the following six minutes when he stopped moving.

At a press conference following the execution, Hamm said the first movements Grayson was doing were “all show” and the later movements were consistent with nitrogen gas executions.

Grayson was the third inmate in the United States to die by nitrogen gas– all in Alabama. He was put to death for his role in the brutal murder of 37-year-old Vicki Lynn Deblieux.

Deblieux was kidnapped while hitchhiking from Chattanooga to see her mother in Louisiana. She accepted a ride from Grayson, Kenny Loggins, Trace Duncan, and Louis Mangione on the Trussville exit of Interstate 59 on Feb. 22, 1994.

Deblieux’s nude and dismembered body was found four days later at the bottom of a cliff on Bald Rock Mountain in St. Clair County.

Court records show after picking up the woman, the teens took her to an abandoned area near Medical Center East in Birmingham, where they all drank. At some point, the teens attacked and killed Deblieux, drove her body to St. Clair County, then tossed her body and luggage off the cliff.

Prosecutors pointed to each of the men as “ringleaders” at their separate trials.

Deblieux’s daughter, Jodi Haley, was present at Holman prison on Thursday night. She described her mother at a press conference following the execution. “She was unique. She was spontaneous, she was wild. She was funny and she was gorgeous to boot,” Haley said.

Haley also focused on Grayson and her stance against the death penalty.

Grayson was abused “in every possible way,” including having cigarettes put out on his skin, facing physical and sexual abuse and being thrown out on the street as an adolescent, Haley said.

“I have to wonder how all of this slips through the cracks of the justice system. Because society failed this man as a child and my family suffered because of it,” she said.

Haley wondered what kind of positive impact Grayson could have had on lives. The ‘eye for an eye’ justification for the death penalty “it’s not right,” Haley said.

“Murdering inmates under the guise of justice needs to stop,” Haley said. “State sanctioned homicide needs never be listed as cause of death,” she said.

“I don’t know who we think we are. To be in such a modern time, we regress when we implement this punishment. I hope and pray my mother’s death will invoke these changes and give her senseless death some purpose,” Haley said.

Earlier in the evening, an Alabama Department of Corrections spokesperson released details of Grayson’s final meals and visitors. He refused his breakfast and lunch tray, but had coffee and Mountain Dew. For his final meal, Grayson had from a nearby restaurant soft tacos, beef burritos, a tostada, chips and guacamole, and a Mountain Dew Blast.